Current spectrum of bacterial infections in patients with nosocomial fever and neutropenia.

BACKGROUND Neutropenic patients are vulnerable to a wide spectrum of infectious agents. The aim of this study was to determine the current frequency of bacterial infections in patients with nosocomial fever and neutropenia. METHODS In a retrospective study, the neutropenic patients' specimens with nosocomial fever were cultured on blood and MacConkey agar plates and evaluated at microbiology laboratory. Ninety-five significant isolates as species level were recognized by bacteriological techniques. RESULTS The most observed microorganism was Escherichia coli, followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Coagulase positive staphylococci and Coagulase negative staphylococci. One fungal infection was also observed. Overall, 67% of the organisms were gram negative, 29.8% gram positive, and 3.2% polymicrobial. CONCLUSION The changing pattern of infectious agents in neutropenic patients overtime postulates the necessity of other studies to give the most up-to-date insight of the organisms to physicians.